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I don't know, caught between the rolling peaks of the Carson Range and the granite spine that is the Sierra Nevada Crystal Lee pool, 22 miles long, 1000 ft deep Ah, lake, to which the Indians gave the name Tahoe the Deep Blue toward the end of the

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last century, Mark Twain wrote. At last, the lake burst upon us, a noble sheet of blue water walled in by a rim of snow clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full 30 ft higher. Still, as it lay there, with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed

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upon its still surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture, the whole earth before. In some respects, things have changed since Mark Twain's day assignment for the weekly award winning report to the West. Produced in the community Interest by the News and Documentary department

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of Koron TV Tonight jackpot at Tahoe on investigation of a dilemma of the sixties in one of nature's most spectacular settings. In the days of the Great Western migration, this mountain bastion was the last most formidable obstacle in the Pioneers path to the golden promise of

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California. Men died here on the fateful winter of 18 46 a party of 89 was trapped by the winter snows. 42 perished in the four months before they could make their way across Donner Pass to the Sacramento Valley. Today, the trip is less perilous, though with

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the heavy traffic it may sometimes seem to take. Almost a long summer and winter, The to all weather highways between Sacramento and Reno roar with the engines of so many automobiles that they all but drown out the noise of construction crews building new highways to carry

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even mawr traffic. This expansion of the arteries leading to the Heartland of the Tahoe Basin is a symbol of what is in many ways, the most remarkable boom of the 20th Century West. Many things contribute to the magnetic appeal attracting Americans of the sixties to the

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Tahoe region. They are drawn by a magnificent combination of mountain, forest and lake, which many feel is unmatched anywhere in the world. Drawn by the burgeoning development and ceaseless promotion of ski resorts like Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Olympics drawn by boat racing, swimming, water

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skiing and skin diving in a lake so clear that objects 100 ft underwater can easily be seen from the surface, drawn by fishing streams filled with trout and salmon. And in the hills, deer bear ducks and geese for the hunter drawn by fresh mountain air and

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a summertime sun warm enough to stimulate a brisk market in sun tan oil. Yet cool enough to make this an oasis from the oven heat of the Sacramento Valley and the Nevada desert, drawn by fine campsites in the midst of wilderness scenery that makes the smog

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of Los Angeles or the metropolitan bustle of San Francisco seem merely a frantic illusion of an alien world. All of these attractions stem from the endowments of nature upon the Tahoe Basin. But there is another attraction and an increasingly important one based on man made geography.

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The fact that a state boundary runs right down the middle of the area, putting Lake Tahoe half of the nation's biggest state and half in the gambling a state in the country. The north end of the lake has expanding casinos and big name entertainment. But it's

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the South Shore, where the fast growing population of California conveniently meets the gambling laws of Nevada that the big action is out of every 100 visitors to Lake Tahoe, 33 come from the San Francisco Bay area, and 30 are from other parts of Northern California. 18

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out of the 100 come here from Southern California. Seven are from Nevada. The rest come from other states. On a typical summer weekend, about 80 0 tourists descend on Lake Tahoe. Most say that gambling is part of their reason for coming here. There's no doubt that

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gambling is the biggest single economic fact at Lake Tahoe. Gaming establishments directly employ about 50 people at the peak of the season, and by 1970 they'll have jobs for twice that, many on. While gambling supports most of the people who live here, it also supports the

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other big attraction, which brings visitors. Chicago Entertainment mhm, mhm e gambling and the entertainment it supports is largely responsible for the boom at Tahoe, as well as the problems that accompany any booming economy. Yet it is the gambling operators themselves who may well be the

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best hope for keeping Lake Tahoe from becoming nothing more than the big slot machine in the sky. We'll investigate the problems and possible solutions. Next. It was a time when Lake Tahoe was a refuge for the wealthy, like Mrs Laura J. Knight, who built her $2

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million home in the style of a Viking castle and entertained royalty in its 38 rooms. Today, Lake Tahoe is host to people of every social and economic group, although 40% of the visitors make over $10,000 a year. There was a time when every cove and headland

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was forested, with 6 ft thick pines and cedars that tower 200 ft high. Today, the forest is being pushed back to make room for the more than 40 0 automobiles, which come here each day. There was a time when this was a remote way station on

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the Pony Express route, when the shoreline echoed to the clatter of a single galloping horse on, the young man with the mail pouch for Sacramento kept a sharp eye out for hostile Indians. Today, that harrowing ride is frozen in bronze beside a four lane highway, and

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the Pony Express rider is headed a full gallop toward a casino parking lot, where a 24 hour parade of tourists in Bermuda shorts marches before his sightless gaze. There was a time when hard bitten mountain men in buckskin guided immigrant caravans through the mountain passes and

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later the creek and rumble of Comstock freight wagons and the clatter of the stage coach were heard along the mountain road between Carson City and Hang Town. Today, that road is U S Highway 50 and forms the main street of the South Shore Motel and Gambling

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strip. Now there's just one wagon train a year. It's purposes publicity for the businesses along its route and under his beard and pioneer costume, you're liable to find that the grizzled scout is the president of the chamber of commerce or the owner of a motel. The

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growing pains of change in a West, which in less than a century has moved from the ox cart pass to an eight cylinder, chrome plated present and a Tahoe's South shore, which in a stat decade has been transformed from sleepy resort to all year round the

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clock Good time boom town, the growing pains of those oven area running to keep up with itself. It's not surprising many of the coins in the Tahoe jackpot already air growing tarnished or in the headlong rush to riches, some areas of the lake have taken on

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the aspect of a Los Angeles main street and the atmosphere of a carnival Midway as the neon plastic and plaster board idols to the commercial ethics spring up to block off the lake and woodland view. The first to sound an alarm have been conservation groups and

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private citizens seeing their favorite sites for boating, fishing and hiking, threatened by the sudden urban sprawl and not far behind them, the people who wield the big stick in politics and economics in the Tahoe Basin. Not surprisingly, the influence at Lake Tahoe is where the money

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is, and the money is where the big gambling is the South Shore. Everyone knows who the big men are here, a pair of arch rivals who asked for and give no quarter in their business competition. The symbol of the success of one is an 11 story

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slab of green cement and anodized aluminum called Harvey's Wagon Wheel Resort Hotel. Ah, one time Butcher Harvey Gross got his start at Lake Tahoe in 1946 with a roadside cafe where his wife did the cooking. It had a small bar, a gasoline pump and six slot

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machines with his son in law, William Ledbetter. Plainspoken Harvey Gross today wields the kind of influence that comes with a $5 million payroll, 1400 employees and an $8.5 million hotel containing 200 rooms, three restaurants, nine bars, 24 hour entertainment and acclaimed um, or slot machines than

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any other casino in the world. Across the street the Wagon Wheels ardent competitors. Harris Club, featuring what is said to be the richest gambling casino in the world, and a huge theater restaurant where entertainers like Lena Horne, Jack Benny, Danny Thomas, Sammy Davis Jr performed with

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lines of high kicking chorus girls. What's more, their plans for a 25 story hotel on the site the owner of all this is Bill Harrah, a former U. C. L. A engineering student. In 1937 he and his father opened a bingo parlor in Reno. His fortune

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since then have been such that today Harris spends his summers in this $750,000 lakeside house, owns the world's largest collection of classic and vintage automobiles, drives a racing Ferrari and several high powered boats and has his own private Pony Express museum. Soft spoken in almost shy

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Bill Hera would seem to be more the picture of the successful stockbroker than the high rolling gamblers. It's an open secret that no love is lost between the owner of Harris Club and the proprietor of Harvey's Wagon Wheel. But one thing the two most powerful men

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at Lake Tahoe agree on is that the salvation of the lake and of their businesses is the preservation of the natural beauty that's left well. We feel that the future is tremendous up here. Do the large area. We have a lake that's approximately 90 miles around

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ample room for growth for the next 20 years. On the main thing is a planning and the keeping it as a beauty spot for recreation. For that and California residents and also tourists, it's tremendous. As you probably know, Way just had a very complete report planning

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report made by a firm in San Francisco for the Lake Powell Area Council, and this report is about 2.5 inches thick, so you could see it would take a lot of time to go into all of the problem. But I think it indicates that the people

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responsible citizens in our community are concerned enough about our growth. If they want to have a definite plan to be used as a guidance by all of the counties in the two states surrounding like how this in itself, I think points of the fact that way

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will meet the challenge of orderly development. Yes, we are making progress and not actual progress. But we're making the progress in our planning and that is thio nuclear. There's no such thing as perfect zoning, but to try and maintain a much of the beauty of nature

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is possible and still be practical. We do have to have grocery stores and we have to have a trailer courts and we have to have everything. But they should be placed so that they yeah, I am maintain, is much of the beauty of the area as

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possible on. I'm very happy with the way things were going really, that there's the business people and residents were very alert to the problem and and I think it's gonna be done well as it can be when you have many counties, many people to states and

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all that sort of thing. I'm quite happy over the whole thing, really, because there's so many people. That's the whole thing is the people are as much in love with the Lakers. I am that they want to see if he kept his peers. It is, and

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I'm not. I'm not worried about anything happening to her. Burgeoning growth has brought to the 500 square miles of the Tahoe Basin headaches to match its mountains. The cry for faster highways poses the threat of freeways slashing across the pine covered slopes. Profiteers are already hacking

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at timbered hillsides. There's talk of a four lane bridge jutting across the lakes. Most spectacular sight Emerald Bay. In some spots, quiet forest land has given way to a billboard jungle. Chaotic commercialization is making it increasingly difficult to see the trees for the hot dog stands

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and gas stations. Soon, Mawr high rise buildings like the 25 story structure that next year will turn this meadow into a 1200 room hotel, the real estate boom that threatens to make wooded shoreline over in the image of the suburban housing track. And there's the immediate

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threat to the very waters of the lake itself. Sewage from the booming hotels, motels and tracks threatens to cloud the sparkling water with a green scum of algae. The man charged with seeing something is done about these problems is the executive director of the nonprofit Lake

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Tahoe Area Council. His name is Dean Seeger. Well, I think that the problems in Electoral Basin are not unlike those of any community in the post war period. I mean, it's just more people and development population explosion only. I think that in the basin that our

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problems become a little more complex by virtue of the fact that we're dealing with a beautiful recreational area. And secondly, we're located within two states and within the confines of five counties, which makes planning for the future more complicated and more complex. I think that the

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wood in the ordinary, typical community, um, we think that our we feel that one of course, one of the most pressing problems is the matter of the disposal of sewage waste. We mentioned this first because with no solution to the waste disposal problem, the sewage disposal

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problem in this great huge basin here. Um, then, um, all other planning activity. Eyes pretty well nullified. I mean, how can we grow? I mean, how can we accommodate, uh, uh, this projected population in this projected development? Unless we find the answer. Do what? To dio,

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whether disposal of sewage. So his waist. There is a plan. A preliminary regional plant that had been built now to the year 1980 in which the five counties of the basin have under consideration. Public hearings have been held recently that envisions a population to the year

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1980 of slightly in excess of 300,000 people on this preliminary plan calls for an attempt to concentrate urban and commercial development had given locations within the lake primarily with the south shore area where we presently are, and on the north Shore, and then, attempting on the

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balance of the lake tow. Avoid what we commonly call strip business development and trying to protect this beautiful scenic backdrop off the lake. We think this can be accomplished. A zai say it's going to call for ah maximum of understanding and cooperation between five counties to

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states and some 70 odd agencies. Governmental agencies of various levels who have interest in the basin. I think that, um, we have to recognize that whatever one's interest is here in the basin, I speak of the business interest off the seasonal resident, the permanent resident on

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the hundreds of thousands of visitors. Actually, they all have the same steak, the businessman and looking ahead into the future, um, recognize or should recognize that his business is predicated on keeping this developing this as a fine, beautiful recreational area. And this, I'm sure, is the

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objective and the thinking of the booster summer resident, uh, and the person who lives year round on the shores of Lake Tahoe. If we can lick the problems of planning, um, meeting these, uh, development challenges taking care of our sewage disposal program again, I'd say future

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unlimited reach for that future Unlimited will involve the hands of 100 business conservationists and home owning interests, many of them in conflict with one another. As pointed out by the publisher of the areas only daily newspaper, The Tahoe Times, cooperation is sometimes Maurin ideal than a

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reality. Chapman Wentworth sees this as the base of the Tahoe headache. I feel the major problem in this area is a political one. We have a community that has expanded from a little 36 students schoolhouse to now three elementary schools and high school with over 1500

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students in a matter of 10 years. We have 14 0 people here now, and we only have one representative in our county government making decisions for the whole district. We have five counties in this area and we are in two states. And with this development, we

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are on the fringe areas of these counties. So these seats of county governments are all over the hill from here, so that we have very little direct contact with political men who are making the decisions for us. Right here. There are so many problems of growth.

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Uhh. Planning zoning, the street situation right now, US 50 the highway, right by our door here get so crowded every afternoon that it takes you a half hour to go a half a mile. And we need problem need, uh, answers to our street development program. We

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have one main highway through here. This is a problem of growth and other problems are places of business. Andi. Homes that are uh, substandard right alongside beautiful places that are very nicely designed and very expensively built so that we have the problem of contrasts with the

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good and the bad and not enough local control to see that it's all good as we'd like to have it on the subject of Emerald Bay, which is almost the world problem because there's so many people have come here from all over the world. It's probably

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one of the one of the most unique and one of the most beautiful visual sites that exists, and the people would have seen them in this natural beauty. The people who think in terms of conserving here, you just don't want to change in any way, shape

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or form. So we have this situation that a low level bridge goes right across the mouth of thing Beautiful little bay, and I would just change the whole appearance of it. And this is this is what offends people. Yet at the same time, a road going

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high above across the ridge would make a tremendous scar in the hillside. So either way, the coming of population in the coming of the motor car actually destroys the pristine beauty of any country. This, then, is what is at stake in the Tahoe jackpot, a Silver

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Line future rich in both the values of nature and the values of the bankers. Ledger set with a scenic jewell that could become a garish and devalued as a paste board gem on a costume oven. Aging strippers We'll take a look at the balance sheet of

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the Tahoe jackpot neck. Today, much of Lake Tahoe stands as it always has, an Alpine refuge of glistening water who meadows and forests rich with the scent of pine and cedar. But for better or for worse, mid 20th century man has arrived, bringing with him the

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temple of his cities and all his desires for escape, for action, for taking a chance and often a fever for living high and living. For now, it is to this end that an increasing portion of Lake Tahoe throbs with the anxious beat of a 24 hour

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boom town. Ultimately, to everyone who knows the lake well comes a moment when they looked beyond the gestures face worn by the high rolling midway along the South Shore strip to the entertainer. It may be that strangely

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quiet time after the grease paint has been put on. But before he walks into the spotlight glare, Assignment four is presented in the public interest each week at this time by the news and documentary department of K R O N. T. V. A. Be

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with us again next Monday at seven for another report to the West on assignment for.